April 25, 2018 / Los Altos Town Crier / Page 5

News

FarmFoods offers 100% grass fed beef directly from

Humboldt Farm in Eureka, CA

We deliver beef frozen with dry ice directly to your home in the Bay Area, and we guarantee freshness

for 12 hours after delivery.

Below are some of our offerings, visit our site for complete list:• Filet Mignon from $8.99• Top Sirloin Steak from $4.50• Ground Beef $6.99/lb

Order online at www.FarmFoodsMarket.comFree delivery if you enter coupon code LOSALTOSCRIER

Contact us info@farmfoodsmarket.com

Read our reviews on Yelp to see how we can make a di�erence

Los Altos-based Home Care Agency for Elderly and Disabled

By Megan V. Winslow Staff Writer/meganw@latc.com

Creeping across benches. Crawling over playground equipment. Dangling from

silk threads like tiny ninjas. The western tussock moth caterpillar class of 2018 is out in force and its members have infi ltrated some lo-cal neighborhoods at unprecedent-ed levels. In Mountain View, infestation causing extreme tree defoliation and skin rashes has warranted in-secticide applications at several parks, according to Jakob Trconic, the city’s park section manager. “Literally, they were blanketing trash cans and benches to the point where it looked like the trash cans were moving,” Trconic said. Adult western tussock moths are native to the Pacifi c states, but they can wreak havoc in the spring when the larval caterpillars fatten up for their pupal cocoon stage by feasting on deciduous tree foliage,

including that of the oak, citrus and stone fruit varieties, according to Andrew Sutherland, University of California Integrated Pest Manage-ment adviser for the Bay Area. “Certainly, they’ll get into our native oak trees and other native shrubs,” Sutherland said. “And when they’re hungry, they’ve got to keep eating, so oftentimes they’ll

migrate to a new plant.” Last year, the caterpillars de-voured Los Altos resident Janet Wilson’s oak leaf hydrangeas in a single day. “I just remember walking out and thinking, ‘Oh, my. Will they ever come back?’” Wilson said of

Creeping, crawling crittersParks smothered by caterpillar overpopulation

MEGAN V. WINSLOW/TOWN CRIER

Adult western tussock moths are native to the Pacifi c states, but they can wreak havoc in the spring as caterpillars, above.

See CRITTERS, Page 6

as part of the campaign effort rather than legitimate instances of bad behavior. The recall campaign cited fi ve cases in which Per-sky allegedly handed down lenient sentences to men convicted of crimes against women and children. Although neither side had time to analyze the cases at length, the debate over each instance appeared to come down to whether Persky had exercised a personal inclination toward leniency for some male offenders. “They want you to believe that Judge Persky is an outlier,” Cordell said, but claimed that the recall has failed to scrutinize sentencing information for other judges or support the assertion that he behaved differ-ently from other judges on the Superior Court. “Sentencing is one of the most fraught and conse-quential decisions that a judge must make,” she said. “I have sentenced thousands of individuals, some to jail, some to prison for life, and when it comes to sentenc-ing, judges must be focused like a laser on the facts and the law, not looking over their shoulders, factoring in considerations to save their jobs. But that’s exactly what will happen if this recall succeeds.” “If you want a different Constitution, let’s go get one, but our current Constitution says, yes, judges are elected … and are accountable to the people,” Cole countered. “If you made them unlimited, you create a creature that was not intended under the law.”

Unresolved questions “Might I have given Brock Turner more time? May-be. But not state prison,” Cordell said when pressed on the question of how she might have sentenced Turner differently. She said “no judge would ever see this case as a prison case” given the witness testimony, probation report and the routine sentencing factors such as an as-

sailant’s age and pri-or criminal history. “It’s not true that no judge would have sentenced Turner to prison – many, many judges were surprised that he wasn’t sentenced to prison,” Cole countered, ar-guing that a judge by defi nition must exercise discretion rather than blindly following a probation report. Cordell contended that “the messenger matters,” suggesting that the long list of public fi gures, specifi -cally judges, who have expressed support for Persky have particular credibility. An outburst from the table of pro-recall visitors indicated resentment at this line of reasoning. Cole suggested that a seeming imbalance in endorsements should be attributed to the chilling effect of speaking out – “The colleagues of a sitting judge can’t take the risk of criticizing a sitting judge openly.” For more information, visit recallaaronpersky.com and norecall2018.org.

PHOTOS BY ELIZA RIDGEWAY/TOWN CRIER

Retired Judge LaDoris Cordell, left, and Stanford Law SchoolProfessor G. Marcus Cole, be-low, debated the merits of judicial recall last week.

RECALLFrom Page 1

Page 6 / Los Altos Town Crier / April 25, 2018

News

her fl owers.

Population control The caterpillars spotted around Silicon Valley in re-cent days are full-grown lar-vae noted for their red spots, spiky bristles and plumed dorsal tufts along their inch-long bodies. Beware the fuzz: Those protruding hairs feature an irritant capable of causing allergic reaction. Mounting complaints from residents with rashes combined with the ongoing destruction to local trees have prompted Mountain View city offi cials to advance beyond manually removing, sweep-ing and blasting the caterpil-lars with pressurized water to applying insecticides. Their chosen product is EverGreen Pyrethrum Concentrate, which Trconic characterized as the safest option capable of making the most impact. “I don’t like putting chem-icals on trees, but given these circumstances, I’m kind of in

a no-win situation,” he said. Trconic’s team began April 9 spraying the insec-ticide on infested trees and play structures in areas with the highest concentrations of caterpillars: Castro Park, Mariposa Park and Pioneer Park and at the Rengstorff Park barbecue area, within downtown’s public parking lot six and on the north side of the senior center. He ex-pects they will selectively target parts of Eagle Park and Mercy-Bush Park this week. After each application, workers remain on scene until playground equipment dries, and then they hose it down as an added precaution, according to Trconic. He said Pyrethrum is considered safe once it dries in the sunlight, and it breaks down complete-ly within three days. Los Altos’ tussock moth caterpillar population has yet to rise to the alarming levels witnessed in Mountain View, though the insects could be observed last week clinging to Shoup Park oak tree leaves and hanging from branches

over Arastradero Road’s pe-destrian pathways. Within weeks, these tiny infi ltra-tors will be gone – whether through human intervention or their natural retreat into cocoons facilitating their transformation into moths a month or so later. Sutherland doesn’t en-dorse insecticides – especial-ly broad-spectrum ones like pyrethrums, which can kill benefi cial insects, including the moth’s natural enemies. Instead, he suggested pres-sure-washing their cocoons and the egg cases. “The cool thing is that since the female (moths) can’t fl y, you’re not going to get a female from another area fl ying in and laying eggs,” he said. “If you can manage your regional or neighbor-hood population, you can control it pretty good.” For more information on the western tussock moth, visit the UC Integrated Pest Management website at ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/GAR-DEN/FRUIT/PESTS/west-tussmth.html.

into the rest of 2018, Rini suggested that thecommission propose a budget for 2018 through 2019.

Development fees for art After Ellickson presented the calendar plan, Waldman chimed in on a council sore spot – levying a fee on developers, usually a percentage of the developer’s project cost – to offset costs of a public art program. Waldman said that in the ad hoc commit-tee’s research, members found more than 30 cities, including Los Gatos and El Cer-ritos, with similar programs. For Los Altos, Waldman proposed charging developers a 1 percent fee per project, capped at $200,000 on capital con-

struction or renovation of commercial and multi-dwelling buildings.

The problem with the developer fee, how-ever, is that commissioners are unsure how high a fee the council would agree to im-pose. During a previous study session with the council and commission, the idea of a half-percent fee was thrown around, but be-cause of council regulations, commissioners would be unable to negotiate the percentage. Maginot advised commissioners not to assume that the council would agree only to a half-percent fee. “It may very well be that at 1 percent they say, ‘Let’s try a half of percent and see (how) the money comes in,”’ he said. The ad hoc committee will put its fi n-ishing touches on the plan and reconvene with the rest of the commissioners at their next meeting, slated 5 p.m. Thursday.

CRITTERSFrom Page 5

PLANFrom Page 4

The Los Altos Public Arts Commission’sad hoc committeedeveloped a tactical plan that includes abig-ticket item – amural painted by an artist on the Downtown Green, right. The artist would paint during busy times, and the mural would be re-vealed at summer’s end.

TOWN CRIER FILE PHOTO